Facts About The Ukulele

This year I have been writing posts about the string family of musical instruments. I have so far concentrated on the most recognisable instruments of that orchestral family and you can read my posts by clicking here:

And now I have started looking at those instruments that while they are obviously stringed instruments, they are not necessarily the instruments that you would immediately think about. Instruments like the guitar:

Facts About The Guitar

For this post I am turning my attention to the Ukulele, now one of the most common musical instruments for children to start to learn to play and which is starting to take over from the recorder!

A small child, dressed in stripy pyjamas and a fluffy blue dressing gown is playing a brown, wooden ukulele.

What is the ukulele and how do you play it?

The ukulele is an instrument in the same family of instruments as the lute, a subset of the string family, if you like. This family is called the string family because they are all played by either plucking, strumming or running a bow along a number of strings.
A person who plays the ukulele is called a ukulele player, or a ukuleleist. I personally stick with the first as I find it easier to say!
The ukulele is not a member of the orchestra, but there have been a few pieces of music composed for the ukulele as a soloist with an orchestra. There is, however, music written for ukulele orchestra, and here in the UK where I am based there is an ensemble just for ukulele players – The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.
There are various different types of ukulele, but the 3 most common are the soprano (the most common one, and the one your child is most likely to bring home from school from ukulele lessons), bass ukulele and the contrabass ukulele. This post is generally referring to these 3 main types of ukulele, and in the most part I will be talking about the first, soprano; and if I just use the term “ukulele” with no additional description, then you would be on safe footing assuming I am talking about the soprano ukulele. There will be others that don’t necessarily have all of the features discussed here, but the ones you are most likely to come across probably will.
In Hawaii, where the ukulele originates from, the soprano ukulele is often called the “standard” ukulele.
The ukulele has 4 strings tuned to the notes G, C, E and A. Usually when I tell you about the strings’ tunings they are tuned from the lowest for the instrument, to the highest. But that is not the case for the ukulele, where it is the second string, the C string, that produces the lowest note.
The strings on the ukulele run from the headstock at the very top of the instrument, to just below a bridge located towards the bottom of the ukulele. The strings are wound around pegs that go through the headstock, and these pegs will be turned to tune the instrument, much like the guitar.
Ukulele strings are generally made out of nylon polymers. Some ukulele players use different materials for their strings, including steel and fluorocarbon strings, which do affect the tone produced, but it is uncommon for the strings to be made from anything other than nylon polymers.
The body of the guitar is made out of wood. Some commonly used woods for the ukulele include mahogany and koa, a wood from the acacia tress commonly found in Hawaii. Ukuleles are often also made out of laminate or plywood, a cheaper option than their hardwood counterparts. The reason that different types of wood are used is that wood from different trees produce resonances at different frequencies – and as you know if you have read these posts before, musical instruments work by making sound vibrate along or against or with different materials. So these different woods will produce a different tone or sound quality.
Cheap ukuleles can be bought with body and strings made out of plastic, but if you are looking for a ukulele to actually learn how to play I would not recommend going for one of these plastic ukuleles as the strings slip out of tune incredibly easily and they are just very frustrating and demotivating to use. They do make very fun, fantastic toys for very young children who want to join in with playing but aren’t ready for a wooden ukulele of their own.
A ukukele will have a hollow body with a hole just below the end of the fret board, to let the sound vibrations resonate through the instrument and escape when you are playing.
Ukuleles have a fret board between the main body of the instrument and its headstock. There are frets marked out along the length of the fret board. These frets mark out roughly where to put the fingers on your non dominant hand to change the pitch you are playing. In the same way as other string instruments work, the ukulele player can play an open string, where they do not put their fingers down on that string at all, or by pressing down on the string. Pressing down on the string will shorten the string, and as the string is shorter it will produce a higher pitched note than the open string.
To play the ukulele you will need to place it with the curve on one side of the ukulele facing the ground and with the back of the instrument facing into your body. Your non-dominant hand will be at the top of the instrument, in fact the fretboard will rest on your hand. Use your non-dominant hand to press down on the fret board to change the pitch of the notes you are producing. Your dominant hand will either pluck at individual strings or strum along all of the strings/some of the strings. A ukuleleist might use a small almost triangular shaped piece of plastic (they are generally made out of plastic) called a pick to help with picking or strumming the ukulele.
If you are left-handed there are ukuleles made specifically made for left-handed players.
Sometimes a player will tap on the body of their ukulele to produce a percussive sound.

History of the ukulele

While the ukulele is an instrument that was developed mostly in Hawaii, it is thought to have come originally from Portugal in Europe.
In 1879 Portugese settlers arrived in Hawaii bringing with them an instrument called the braguinha. Amongst these settlers were three men, cabinet makers by trade, who knew how to make the braguinha Manuel Nunes, Augusto Dias and Jose do Espirito. Over time these men modified the braguinha to suit the style of music played in Hawaii, and in doing so created the ukulele.
The first ukuleles probably date from the late 19th Century.
The name of the instrument means “dancing flea” and it is not known exactly how the instrument got its name. It may have been named after one of the players in King Kalākaua’s Court, Edward William Purvis, who was a small man who had a very fidgetty playing style, or it may have been named the ukulele because of the movement of a player’s fingers when playing.
King Kalākaua was a big fan of the ukulele and a patron of the arts in general.
The ukulele made its way to the USA in 1915.
Grew in popularity as many popular artists used the instrument, including movie stars like Elvis Presley and George Formby playing the instrument on film.
The ukulele lost its popularity in the West for a few decades, but rose to prominence again in the 1990s with artists like Israel “Iz” Kamalawiwo’ole’s medley of the songs Somewhere Over the Rainbow and What a Wonderful World and videos of ukulele player Jake Shimabukuro appearing. Artists like Taylor Swift using ukulele in her songs and performances have also helped to propel the ukulele’s popularity.
In late 2021 a report came out from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) that showed the percentage of children learning the recorder as their first musical instrument had dropped by 47% since 2014, where the percentage of children starting to learn to play ukulele had increased by 15%. As a parent whose children have and are learning to play both instruments, I can attest to the fact that the ukulele is definitely the easiest instrument to listen to a beginner playing. Obviously with a bit of practice both instruments can sound beautiful, but for those first few weeks one is definitely easier on the ear than the other!

Famous ukulele players

Sometimes writing this section I can find a number of people who are famous for playing that particular instrument, and very often I find the names almost exclusively of classical (with a small ‘c’ so using it as a catch all term for all music written before about 1950) musicians. Not so much with the ukulele, as it is a relatively new instrument.

Famous ukuleleists include Israel “Iz” Kamakawiwo’ole, Jake Shimabukuro, Taimane Gardner, George Formby and Debashish Bhattacharya.
There are also a number of people famous for other reasons who also happen to play ukulele. These people include pop musicians Taylor Swift, John Lennon, Steven Tyler and Elvis Presley, actors Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Ryan Gosling and William Macy, comedian Victoria Jackson and first man on the moon Neil Armstrong, though he didn’t play the ukulele on the moon!

Guitar World Records

The World Record for the largest ukulele ensemble was set on 13 August 2017 in Hong Kong when an enormous number of 8,065 played the song Amazing Grace together.
On 27 November 2016 the World Record for the longest marathon ukulele playing was set when ukulele player Robin Evans played ukulele for 30 hours and 2 minutes at the Duke of Uke in London, UK.
The world’s largest ukulele measures 3.99m (13ft 1in)long was created by maker Lawrence Stump who was based in Lansing, USA.
The world’s most expensive ukulele was singer Kyak Pauk’s blue ukulele that he customised with doodles on the front of the instrument. This ukulele was sold by auction to raise money for the National Unity Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar in October 2021 and raised $27,500.

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Facts About The Ukulele